1 John
1Jo 2:1-2 - Sanctification and Propitiation
by Joe Holder
My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. (1Jo 2:1-2)
Many passages reveal their truth in two facets. Not many reveal both facets as clearly as our study lesson. There is a legitimate concern when you assure people that their sin problem has been solved. Will they celebrate their deliverance and live conscientiously from that day forward? Or will they celebrate and return to their sinful habits, thinking their conduct doesn't matter? Why worry about sin? Jesus died to solve my sin problem, so I can just sin and not worry about it. This attitude callously avoids Biblical teaching on the believer's obligation to live a godly life. Paul devotes a whole chapter to this problem (Ro 6:1-23) and makes it clear that we can't claim a position in God's army while wearing the uniform of the enemy! John joins Paul in this context.
The rational conclusion to the first chapter of this epistle calls for honest confession of and repentance from our sins. When confession joins repentance, we initiate the process the New Testament calls sanctification. Continuous confession without repentance is hypocrisy. Through confession and repentance, we grow and improve in our godliness. Our walk with God grows closer and stronger. It never stagnates. Old habits of sin we would have indulged with little thought in times past we now view as sinful and repugnant to our spiritual inclination. Rather than continuing to repeat the same old sins and reluctantly confessing them when they catch up with us, we constantly examine our conduct and eliminate sinful habits through repentance. We grow closer to God through actual changes in our conduct. That is Biblical sanctification. (1Th 4:1-8. Notice in this passage that Paul says if we despise, reject or set aside, we despise God and not man. The contextual message is that when we refuse to engage our discipleship in this process of sanctification, we actually have set God and His will aside. We will answer to Him! And the answer will not be pleasant.)
This union of confession and repentance is the only rational conclusion we can reach from the first chapter. For a believer to confess a particular sin and continue practicing it is the equivalent to this habit in our natural life. What if you had an accident and cut yourself deeply? You go to the physician. The first thing he does is to cleanse the wound fully. The cleansing is often painful, but it is necessary for healing. Once he cleanses the wound, he will apply sutures and bandages to protect it during the healing process. Does it make any sense for you to go home from the doctor's visit, take off the bandages and see how dirty you can get that wound? You can almost guarantee infection or worse. Well, when you confess your sin and return to its practice, you have done the equivalent spiritually. And you shall surely suffer the consequences of spiritual infection and disease.
What is there about 1Jo 1:1-10 that nudges us to turn away from sin? First of all, the lesson clearly reveals God's hatred of sin, ours included. If God hates sin so fully, we have no business viewing it as neutral or acceptable conduct. Secondly, the remedy for active habits of sin in 1Jo 1:1-10 requires our active confession and repentance, a walk in righteousness. Only the self-deluded reader would conclude from that chapter that he/she may sin freely now that the sin question is settled in Christ. The rational conscientious believer will read the chapter and vow before God to begin a life of steady growth in godly conduct and removal of sin from their habits.
And if any man sin. John tells us a reality we will experience. Try as we might to avoid sin, we will fall into occasional sins. This does not justify habitual sin. In fact later in this book John actually questions a person's salvation who makes no effort to turn away from habitual sins. We have no Biblical authority to give comfort to habitual sinners who continually repeat the same sins and try to use confession alone as a convenient escape hatch from responsibility to repent and grow away from that sin. The point John makes here deals with the occasional sins that the most devoted believer will commit. The idea is that God's remedy for sin covers these sins. In fact he actually uses this lesson to reinforce the effective power of confession and cleansing he presented in the first chapter.
We have an advocate with the Father. This word advocate richly instructs us. It means "one who pleads another's cause before a judge, a pleader, counsel for defense, legal assistant, an advocate."1 God has provided a legal defense for that sin you committed. Consider another natural parallel to this lesson. Someone tells you the name of one of the best attorneys in the country. You meet this person and become best friends. He tells you if you ever need legal assistance he will gladly represent you. Does this mean you will go right out and rob a bank on the basis that your friend is so competent he can surely gain an innocent verdict from the courts? No! Then we should never allow a slack spirit toward our sins simply because we have Christ as our advocate with the Father. Repentance, confession or reform do not save us, but in the consistent teaching of the New Testament, they accompany salvation!
He is the propitiation for our sins. This word simply means that Jesus is the divine appeasement or legal satisfaction for our sins. We cannot deny our sins before an all-knowing God. Nothing can hide from His omniscient eye. But He has provided a legal remedy for our sins. New Age theologians will openly admit that Jesus is one of many ways to God. Oh, their description of the details will contradict just about everything the Bible says about Him, but they will say at least that much about Him. Try to convince them that He is the only way to God and you'll see their true colors. They will have none of that idea. John doesn't tell us that appeasement comes through Jesus and.... He says it comes through Him alone.
But for the sins of the whole world. Many theologians will debate this part of our passage fiercely. Did John intend that Jesus is the propitiation, the legal and actual appeasement, for every sin of every sinner? That interpretation would contradict the many passages that deal with eternal punishment, for if Jesus actually appeased God's justice for every sin of every sinner, universalism would be a fact. Hell would be empty and heaven would have a population explosion. If Jesus factually appeased the Father's justice for all the sins of all mankind, there can be no basis in fact for anyone being sent to hell because of their sins. How then to we explain this statement?
To gain a better grasp of the "whole world" in this passage, we need to understand the "our" of the passage first. Clearly "our" appears in contrast with "whole world." If "our" refers to all believers, people already saved, then we are forced into a particular definition of the whole world that contradicts other Scriptures. To whom was John writing this letter? We do not have a particular church or individual named in the opening of the letter, so we must look to the content of the letter and to John's ministry. The most obvious error John confronted in the letter is Docetism, the denial of Jesus' human body. Certainly the "our" of the letter appears in contrast to this group. Perhaps more informative to the question is Ga 2:9. On one of Paul's few trips to Jerusalem, narrated by him here, he had a private conference with Peter, James and John. At the end of that meeting, they all agreed that God had assigned the three of them to the Jews and Paul and Barnabas to the Gentiles. Thus God directed John's ministry to Jews. He employs more Jewish symbols in his writings than any other New Testament writer. He alone wrote a whole New Testament book in unique Jewish apocryphal genre, Revelation. Other cultures wrote apocryphal literary works, but the Jews adapted it to their history and culture in a rather unique manner. John adopted that style in writing Revelation.
When challenged with two interpretations and one contradicts Scripture but the other doesn't, wise Bible interpretation dictates that you adopt the view that harmonizes with Scripture generally. Given the problem with forcing this passage to say too much, having it embrace universalism and deny eternal punishment, or holding to a modified view, I recommend the modified view. If John was writing to Jewish believers, it naturally implies that the "our" of the lesson would refer to them. This application includes believers of a special class, Jewish believers. Jesus is the propitiation (itself a Jewish term common in John's day) for their sins. What about non-Jewish believers? How would you categorize them? You could call them Gentiles. But one of the most common terms of the day among Jews to refer to all non-Jewish cultures and races was the word world. This interpretation puts this passage in line with many other passages. Jesus died for, and became the eternal appeasement, satisfaction or propitiation, for the sins of all His people. He died and appeased God's justice for Jewish children of God. He died and appeased God's justice for Gentile children of God. In fact His death transcends all racial and cultural boundaries. He died for all His people alike! (Mt 1:21) The promises of 1Jo 1:1-10 apply to all God's children alike. The assurances of Christ's death and its benefits apply alike to all children of God. His command to refrain from sin applies to all His children alike. The comfort to believers when they realize areas of sin in their life applies equally to Jew and non-Jew alike. To borrow from a children's hymn, though to apply it slightly differently than in the hymn, "...red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight." God does not distribute His blessings based on our culture or race. He distributes them freely and wondrously based on His amazing love for us and based on Jesus' death on our behalf. There are no classes in God's family. All His children have full and equal access to His blessings. In God's family every child is a "saint." What a Savior!
1Jo 1:1-3 - Implications of the Incarnation